


semi-wild beast, mostly no longer on the loose

by someoneplsloverobbierotten



Series: The Chronicles of Peanut-Butter [1]
Category: LazyTown
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s01e04 Crystal Caper, Gen, Gift Fic, Kittens, Not Beta Read, and robbie needed a friend so i gave him one, i just couldn't get robbie's interaction with the kitten out of my head, robbie's a bit of a grump but he's a big softie, the lazytown kitten
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-25
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-09-19 22:29:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9463076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/someoneplsloverobbierotten/pseuds/someoneplsloverobbierotten
Summary: After a long day dealing with Sportacus and those little brats, all Robbie wants to do is go to sleep. The kids are probably home by now, so surely it should be quiet enough for a nice nap?Thing is, Robbie just isn't that lucky.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is dedicated to my amazing best friend Zane!

It ended up taking over an hour for Robbie to put everything back in its rightful place.

The coffee cup just went back into its usual kitchen cupboard, but the comics had needed to be put into their correct order before he could put them away. The coins needed a similar sorting, but Robbie was far too tired for that now. The comics had taken long enough, and organising the coins would take even longer. All he wanted to do right now was collapse into his chair and relax - maybe take a nap. The coins could wait until tomorrow.

However, he had to move his chair back into place and re-align the rug before he could sit down. His earlier crash-landing had shifted them considerably back, and though the rug was an easy fix and his chair wasn’t actually too heavy, that on top of re-organising everything else was just more effort than Robbie was willing to expend. It was necessary, however, and once his furniture had been set to rights, he collapsed into his chair. The horrendous orange fluff was soft and welcoming, and he sank into the cushions with a relieved sigh. At least now that Sportaflop had had his stupid crystal returned to him, he and those blasted brats should stay calm enough for the rest of the day that he should get some peace and quiet. In fact, the flippity-zippity hero had probably returned to wherever he spent the nights by now, leaving the children to return to their homes and the streets of LazyTown silent once more.

Robbie let out a happy sound at the thought, burrowing his way into the comfortable fur of his chair. He contemplated a cup of coffee before his nap – or a hot chocolate; less caffeine – and maybe another chapter or two of ‘ _Rotten Behaviour for Dummies_ ’.

Tomorrow, he would sort out those coins. He suspected that would take up most of his day, but if it didn’t, he could perhaps spend the remaining time working on newest side-project. He had meant to spend _today_ doing that, but the fiasco with Sportadork’s crystal had taken over his planned inventing time, and he was too tired (and comfortable) to be bothered getting up to tinker with it now. Remembering his earlier harsh landing, he also resolved to work on procuring a bigger pillow. It wouldn’t be too much of a hassle to sew one if he could find some matching fabric.

Of course, those tasks would be interspersed with several naps.

Mentally organising his plans for the next day relaxed him enough that he was starting to doze. He was teetering on the edge of sleep when a horrible wailing noise shattered his precious silence. Robbie’s eyes flew open at the awful sound, and he nearly fell out of his chair in his scrambling effort to see what on _earth_ was making it. His gaze flew around the lair, searching frantically for the cause of the noise, before he realised that that the sound was coming from above him. He groaned and buried his face in his hands; of _course_ it was. He knew the peace wouldn’t last – it never did. There was always something, always some sort of noise coming from the town above to ruin the sanctity of his lair and render sleep impossible – not that it was usually possible for him to sleep even when it _was_ quiet.

The wailing continued, and Robbie clamped down on the urge to shove his fingers through his hair. Instead, he held his head in his hands and let out a rather embarrassing – if deeply cathartic – scream of frustration.

The wailing was high pitched and incessant, and it sounded close. The source must be directly over the bunker. Though the noise itself didn’t seem particularly loud, the empty space between the ground and his lair meant that the sound travelled down to him easily, the volume amplified by the vast amount of metal pipes that surrounded the bunker.

“Gaah!” he exclaimed, throwing up his arms. He couldn’t take it anymore! He threw himself from his chair and strode towards the entrance pipe, determined to stop whatever it was making that horrible sound.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Robbie pushed open the hatch of the entrance pipe stuck his head out. It was still rather light out, but the sun was beginning to set, sending pink streaks across the yellowing sky. It was a beautiful sight, one that he might have stopped and admired for a while if he wasn’t so intent on finding the source of the wailing.

He hoisted himself up over the edge using the ladder’s handles and climbed down, nudging an old cog away from the ladder’s base with his foot. The area behind the billboard was littered with scrap metal and off-casts from various old inventions; old junk he never used and could never be bothered to dispose of properly.

Something clattered to his right and he spun, eyes narrowed as he scanned the surrounding area for the cause.

“Who’s there?” he called out.

There was no reply, but movement in the corner of his eye drew him to an old stretch of pipe near the billboard’s base. A black and white kitten perched next to it, and Robbie recognised it as the one from earlier – the one that had definitely _not_ scared the daylights out of him when it brushed up against him in the hole he’d fallen into.

He stared at it, baffled. Surely this pathetic little creature couldn’t be the source of that awful wailing?

It was at that point that kitten noticed him, and immediately opened its tiny mouth to let out one of the loudest yowls Robbie had ever heard.

His jaw dropped. How on earth could that tiny thing be the source of all that noise? Granted, the sound had been very much amplified by the vast amount of metal pipes that filled the empty space between the ground and the bunker, but _still_ , the little furball was yowling far louder than it had any right to.

The kitten yowled again and Robbie pulled himself out of his shock. “Hey!” he shouted at it, stomping one foot on the ground, “stop that!”

The kitten fell silent, staring at him with tiny amber eyes.

“Go away,” Robbie ordered. The kitten looked at didn’t move, but it didn’t start making any more noise, so he gave it a strong glare for good measure before turning to climb up the ladder to the pipe.

He’d barely closed one hand around the ladder’s handle when it howled at him again – even _louder_ this time – but Robbie ignored it as he hauled himself up the ladder’s few steps. When he looked over the chute’s edge to tell it to be quiet again though, it had gone.

_‘Thank goodness’_ , Robbie thought, and placed his hands on the edge of the chute so he could pull himself up and over. He’d gotten about halfway when a loud yowl came from right underneath him and he startled, nearly falling into the chute head-first. He scrambled briefly before he managed to right himself, and immediately looked down the ladder to glare daggers at the kitten howling its little head off by bottom of it.

“I thought I told you to _beat it_ , you furry little gremlin,” he spat.

The kitten looked at Robbie and yowled again, placing its little paws on the bottom rung of the ladder and nosing at the bar.

Robbie hissed at it and extended a foot down to push it away. It fell back onto its rump, but immediately started reaching for the ladder again.

Robbie shouted in frustration and jumped back down the ladder, throwing his hands out at the kitten. “ _Why_?” he asked it, “why won’t you go?” he whined, practically begging the stupid thing.

It still didn’t move, so Robbie sighed and picked it up with one hand, curling his other under its backside as he brought it to eye level. “Look, you little gremlin,” he told it, “you shouldn’t be up here.”

The kitten just looked at him, clearly not yet old enough to put two and two together, and Robbie rolled his eyes at it. “Sportacus _likes_ you,” he explained. “If he sees you up here near me, he will probably assume that you are in trouble and start flippity-flipping his way over here. I’ve already had _more_ than enough interaction with him and his little entourage today, the _last_ thing I need is him trying to rescue you from me.”

He lowered the kitten to the ground and put his hands on his hips, frowning down at it. “Now go on, scram.”

The kitten ignored him, instead parking its scruffy little butt next to his foot.

“Go on!” Robbie cried out, “shoo!” He flapped his hands, but the kitten stayed right where it was.

Getting desperate, he nudged it a few centimetres along the ground with the side of his shoe. The kitten mewled in protest, but stood. The small rush of triumph that Robbie felt from getting it to move quickly vanished when it immediately started trying to unsteadily wind around his legs. Robbie growled in frustration and lifted his foot away, but the stubborn creature simply lurched over to his other foot and started trying to wobble round that one instead.

Robbie raised his gaze to the heavens and mouthed ‘ _why me_ ’ as the fuzzy beast clambered around and over his shoes. It was somehow managing to purr and yell at him at the same time.

He picked up his other foot and tried to step away, but it followed him. One of its legs skidded out from under it, sending it sprawling, but it shoved the wayward limb vaguely back to where it should be and carried on scrambling over his shoes undeterred.

Defeated, Robbie let out a loud sigh and slumped down against the chute, legs akimbo. He tipped his head back to let it rest against the cool metal and closed his eyes, feeling the kitten immediately busy itself with attempting to clamber over one of his shins. He opened one eye just a sliver to keep watch as he attempted to think of a way to get rid of it.

Barely ten seconds passed before the stupid thing tripped over its own tail and nearly head-butted the floor.

Robbie groaned, trying his hardest resist the urge to just smash his head against the darn chute. Honestly, watching the little beast’s lack of co-ordination was getting almost painful. Opening his eyes fully, he watched as it swayed unsteadily around his feet. The tiny thing looked barely old enough to be away from its mother, never mind roaming the town - he was amazed that it had managed to make it all the way up to the billboard.

Glancing towards the billboard in thought, Robbie noticed the horizon. The sun was much lower in the sky now, dark purples beginning to dispel the wisps of pink he’d seen before. It was beautiful, truly, but…

He looked back down at the kitten. Would it survive out here, if he sent it on its way alone? The thought made him uneasy and he started fiddling with one of the buttons on his cuff. It must’ve taken all day for it to get from the town all the way up here, it would take it all night to get back to where it came from. And what if it got lost? He tucked the foot the kitten had been playing with closer to himself and the kitten followed, purring and chittering.

Watching it pat at his shoe, Robbie realised that even if he _did_ manage to get the little beast to scram, he wouldn’t be able to help it on its way; he didn’t know where it came from. Come to think of it, he hadn’t heard anything about an escaped or missing kitten all day – did it even _have_ a home to go to?

Robbie shivered, suddenly feeling cold even though the sun hadn’t yet sunk low enough to remove the warmth of the day. Without thinking, he reached out and scratched the kitten behind its ears, the heat of its little body warming his fingertips. The kitten let out a high-pitched trill at being touched and Robbie yanked his hand back instantly, eyes wide in panic.

It was too late though; the wee beast was already clamouring for more attention, trying to climb over his foot and onto his lap. It started yowling again, and Robbie let his head fall back against the chute with a dull thump, covering his face with his hands and groaning. He was a fool! An idiot!

The kitten yelled at him again and he could feel tiny claws pricking through the material of his trousers. A couple of centimetres or so higher and they’d be getting close to somewhere dangerous.

Desperate to quiet it again – and to prevent it from damaging anything important – Robbie reluctantly removed a hand from his face and lowered it down to the kitten. It didn’t stop yelling at him, but it did push its head into his hand the second it came within reaching distance, once again, managing to purr and yowl at the same time.

Defeated once again, Robbie resigned himself to his fate. He scratched behind its ears and stroked from the top of its head all the way down to its tail in slow, broad strokes. It was so small. His hand covered its entire body.

The kitten leaned into every stroke, doing its very best to meet his hand again whenever he had to lift it to begin a new one. It fell a few times, the animal’s eagerness sabotaged by its poor balance, but it was clearly relishing the attention if the relentless purring it was doing was anything to go by.

Robbie stifled a smile. He had to admire the little beast’s determination. Clearly nothing would prevent it from getting the attention it wanted – not even its own body.

He petted it for a while, losing himself a little in the soft fur under his fingertips. The kitten continued to purr underneath his hand, only yowling occasionally.

Robbie begun to suspect that yelling was just a thing that it did.

Nevertheless, he enjoyed himself. The reasonably repetitive motion of stroking the kitten was soothing, and the constant purring was comforting – though it did make his hand feel a little funny after a while. Fuzzy, almost. Like leaving your hand on top of a dryer for too long.

He held out for a while, but soon had to pull back his hand and shake it out a bit to try and dispel the numbing feeling. The kitten immediately demanded that he returned his attention to it, kneading its little feet into his leg and yowling. Robbie just rolled his eyes at it. Greedy little wretch.

A slight breeze blew through the area behind the billboard and Robbie shivered. It had gotten even darker now, the sun having finally disappeared below the horizon and leaving the sky a deep violet. Some of the brighter stars were visible, Robbie noticed. Not enough to be able to pick out any constellations, though. He rubbed his arms in an attempt to stave off another shiver. Near his foot, the kitten meowed and pushed its cheek into his ankle, trying its best to squish its entire body against him as it moved up along his leg. Robbie ran one hand over its back and tensed. The kitten was still reasonably warm – it wasn’t _that_ cold tonight – but Robbie swore that the tiny body under his hand wasn’t as warm as it had been earlier. Frowning, he scooped a hand under the kitten and lifted it onto his lap, curling his hands around it. It burrowed into the warmth of Robbie’s stomach and began purring softly.

He lifted his gaze to the billboard, picturing the town hidden behind it. He stared at the billboard for a good few minutes debating a course of action, absentmindedly lifting a hand to stroke along the kitten’s back. It really was too late to try and take it back home now.

But he couldn’t leave it out here to yowl all night. In the cold…

He turned his head to look back at the chute entrance.

Finally he looked back at the kitten. Robbie stared at it for a few long moments, hand resting heavily on its back, before he finally sighed and stood, his decision made.

The kitten protested his movements, yowling loudly, but Robbie simply picked it up and carried it over to the chute.

“Come on you little beast,” he told it, “I’m not having you yowling out here all night.” He climbed the ladder with his free hand, hauling himself onto the edge. A gust of wind made him shiver and he paused, perched on the rim of the chute. “And Sportacus would kill me if I left you out here to freeze,” he added. He gathered the kitten to his chest, checking it was secure in his arms, and tipped himself off the edge of the chute.

He landed – thankfully - butt-first in his chair, the kitten safely ensconced within his arms. It was still yelling, but not as loudly as before, so Robbie took that to mean that it wasn’t _too_ bothered by the travel down. Still, he gave it a moment, taking time to bask in the beautiful warmth of his lair. If there was one advantage to being a master engineer, it was being able to make your central heating pretty much perfect.

A minuet later he set the kitten down on the ground – which it protested _very_ loudly at – and after nudging his chair back into place, made his way to the kitchen. He was too tired to be bothered with making coco now, only wanting to curl up in his chair and sleep, but things needed to be taken care of first.

He started rummaging through his cupboards. If he gave it something to eat, it might stay quiet enough for him to get some sleep. Better yet, it might nod off itself. He paused in his search, nose scrunching in thought. ‘ _What do kittens even eat, anyway_?’ he wondered, ‘ _besides cat food_.’ He knew he didn’t have any of that lying around. He could have something else though, right?

Wrong. It turned out that the only things in Robbie’s cupboards were boxes of microwave popcorn, cake mix, and incredibly sugary cereal, which, though unfortunate in this case, wasn’t surprising. He had nothing anywhere near appropriate for fuzzy little gremlins.

In the end, he had to settle with putting down a saucer of very watered down milk. He’d wanted to avoid giving the little beast milk to be honest; he’d heard somewhere that pure milk made cats sick, but with no food for it to eat, it was better than nothing. He’d needed something with at least a little nutrition to it.

He set the kitten by the saucer and scowled down at it. “That’s all I’ve got,” he told it, placing a hand on his hip. The kitten sniffed around the edge of the saucer for so long that Robbie started to doubt that it would actually drink any of it, just sniff at it, but eventually started lapping away.

Robbie huffed. “About time.”

He left the kitten to it, going over to his workstation and dragging out the huge box that was behind it. Every day, he woke up to find an edition of the LazyTown newspaper and – more often than not – some junk-mail waiting for him on the floor below the entry-chute. He hardly ever read any of it, but saved all of them because they were useful when he was working on something a bit messier; throwing out some sheets of newspaper were a lot less effort than spending an hour cleaning and mopping.

Robbie pulled a couple of editions out of the box and flattened them over the bottom of a very low-sided baking pan – which he would **_never_** be baking in again. He put the makeshift litter-tray down in in a far corner of the bunker and looked up.

The kitten had apparently finished with the milk, since it was now sniffing around the edge of his staircase. He stalked over to it and scooped the tiny thing up, ignoring its protesting yowls, and brought it over to the tray.

Robbie plopped the kitten down on the newspaper and pointed to the litter-tray. “You pee on there,” he told it. “If I find pee anywhere else, you’re gone.”

The kitten looked down at the newspaper it was stood on for a moment before stepping unsteadily over edge of the tray and onto the floor. For a moment, Robbie thought that it was getting out of the tray just so it could pee on the floor and spite him and he tensed, but the kitten did nothing more than start wandering around the bunker, sniffing at random things. Relieved, Robbie let the kitten explore the bunker unimpeded and went to change into his pyjamas.

That _was_ one upside to this whole kitten-finding fiasco, Robbie conceded. Actually planning on going to sleep gave him the forewarning to get changed into his pyjamas, instead of randomly falling asleep in his chair, still in his normal clothes.

Keeping a careful eye on the kitten tottering around the bunker, he collected the saucer form the floor and rinsed it off. He refilled it – this time with plain water. No matter how much he diluted it, Robbie didn’t want to wake up to the smell of sour milk if the kitten didn’t drink it.

The kitten didn’t notice when Robbie set the saucer back down on the ground, or perhaps just didn’t care, content to wobble around and explore.

As long as it was quiet, Robbie didn’t really care.

As it was, everything was silent – both above the bunker and in it – and Robbie could finally get some sleep. Another point to actually planning on going to sleep this time; he actually had the chance to put his chair into recliner mode before he fell asleep in it. He started plumping the pillow and then paused, catching sight of the kitten nosing around his workstation. He held the pillow in his hand for a moment, debating, then dropped it on the floor near his chair. The beast could have that one. He’d already set himself to make a bigger one tomorrow anyway, and it was better than finding the little gremlin asleep on something important in the morning.

‘ _Luckily,_ ’ Robbie thought, ‘ _my chair is comfortable enough without the pillow_.’ Indeed it was, as Robbie collapsed into his chair with a moan that would be viewed as unnecessarily inappropriate, had anyone heard it. He slipped his sleeping mask over his eyes and settled back into the fluff of the chair. It had been an exhausting day, and even the _thought_ of finally getting some sleep made him sigh blissfully.

Alas, it was not to be.

Just as he was drifting off, the kitten started yowling again and Robbie jerked awake with a horrible feeling of déjà vu. The kitten kept meowing and Robbie groaned. He was an idiot – instead of getting rid of the noise, he’d brought it _closer_ instead.

He should’ve left the little wretch out there.

Robbie lifted one half of the mask and looked down by the foot of his chair. The kitten had its front paws planted on the side of his chair and was looking up at him, yowling ridiculously loudly. When he accidentally caught its eye, it started getting even louder, and Robbie got the distinct impression that he was being _yelled_ at.

He couldn’t believe it. The audacity of this creature, to wake him up after he had brought it into his home, and _yell at him!_

“What do you _want_ ,” he snapped.

It yowled again.

Growling, Robbie reached down and plucked the noisy thing from the ground by the scruff of its neck. “ _What_ ,” he hissed.

The little beast fell silent.

He sighed and lowered the kitten to his chest, curving a hand round its back and rear so it didn’t slip down. It meowed at him, quieter this time, and Robbie slumped, the fight going out of him.

“ _Please_ stop being so loud,” he begged. He was so tired. “Please, it’s been a long day.”

The kitten looked at him and then settled down on his chest, wrapping its little tail around itself and resting its chin on its tiny white paws. Robbie watched, slack-jawed, as it closed its eyes and started purring. He stared at it for a few moments, waiting for it to start yelling again, to move, _anything_ , but it just stayed curled on his chest, purring. He could feel the vibrations through his pyjamas. Like when he had pet it earlier, it was soothing.

Robbie didn’t want to move it.

_‘Of course you don’t,’_ he thought, _‘the tiny terror is **finally** silent!’_

Robbie smoothed his thumb over the fur on the kittens back. It was also warm. Comfortable.

He tugged the other half of the mask over his eyes with his free hand and shuffled carefully in his chair, trying to get as comfy as possible without dislodging the snoozing kitten. Finally settled, Robbie relaxed into the fur of his chair and allowed his eyes to close beneath the mask, absentmindedly running his thumb down the kitten’s spine.

He fell asleep listening to the low rumble of its purr, thumb rubbing gently back and forth over downy-soft fur.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

In the morning, Robbie woke to yowling barely two inches from his face and a small puddle just to the left of the litter-tray.


End file.
